Rosolare la Donna
by Mopps
Summary: Same woman, different name. What does it matter in the end, when you've had more than a pre-war phone book? Charlie wasn't the first she had, and Boone wasn't the first to give her one. Prequel to my upcoming New Vegas serial.


**It's** been hours, long enough that she's no longer sure if she's fought in this pit before, but then there's always the chance that this is a brand new one. Walls of dirt and stone, busted rebar and concrete, badly welded scraps made out of who the hell knows what; they're all the same in the end until a rival family or what passes for the law busts it up and breaks it down. She doesn't favour a side, just takes what she wants from whoever will set it up. An opponent, screams in the air, blood on the sand, and a purse full of caps at the end of the day. Same dirty little fucking dance.

She flicks her duster out and spits, waiting for the bell. "New Reno is a shithole."

Her final guest of the night grins from across the ring at her, all scarred muscle and dug-in smoky blue tattoos leaning against a sledge that weighs at least twenty pounds if it's an ounce. "I hear you keep saying that."

"Reckon it keeps being true."

"Then why the fuck don't you leave?"

"And give up your fine company?"

Both of them raise their voices as the announcer starts his patter to the crowd, outlining the skills of both, their histories of wins, or sometimes just total bullshit he pulls from his ass, all exaggerated to make the bets fly even faster. Same unending prattle.

_'In this corner, weighing in at a long 165 pounds-'_

"Last chance to give up before I kill you."

_'Your darling of the desert, your queen of the blades-'_

"I could say the same."

_'The one, the only Duster!'_

"Duster? That's supposed to scare me?"

Duster flicks out her leathery namesake again, giving the sheaths at her hips a flash of daylight. "Don't care what it does for you. Crowd give it to me because it makes it easier for the betting."

_'And in this corner, at a whip-whopping 278 pounds-'_

"Makes it easier to identify the paste I'll turn you into."

_'Your Beast from the East-'_

"Ah heck Jules, do I really need to know who the fuck he is? Not like I can keep track any more." She slaps a shit-eating grin on her face and Jules laughs from his perch high above, gold-capped teeth shining out of his dark wizened face, and everyone laughs with him, all except for the lunk with the sledge. it doesn't matter. The bell rings and then they're at it. Same shit, different day.

He's faster than she thought he would be, faster than he has a right to be, and Duster knows there has to be some sort of chemical edge at work. All it does is make the fire in her belly burn higher, and she starts laughing as she dances around, ducking and bobbing as the sledge comes within an inch of tearing her hat off with her head still in it. Faster, but there's no flair, no fight, no skill.

The sound of the crowd rises around her with each bit of blood that falls from the little nicks she's leaving in him, a flow that matches the sound of her own in her ears. Why in all the stars and sky they'd match her up with such an ox for her last go around the ring for the night she has no idea. Duster even goes so far as to bash his teeth in with the hilt of one of her knives, a risky, stupid move with his kind of reach, just to see if it would mean a better fight, a better thrill, the only kind of high she wants. She doesn't get it.

She's moving in for the killing blow, bored and ready to make him smile from ear to ear under the chin when something jumps up from nowhere and bites her.

"What the fuck-" She slaps at the back of her neck and pulls away a dart, sticky and black. There's time to stare at it, time to think _'well, _this _is an interesting turn of my key' _before her feet are flying out from under her, blades gone and the end of her long coat caught up in his meaty, fat fist. She stares up at him, eyes burning from under the brim of her hat like two coals in the ground as whatever the dart was smeared in works into her brain. "You low-down dirty _whoremaster_."

"You've pissed off too many of the wrong people, you cocky little cunt. Time for you to shuffle on down the trail."

"Some people just can't stand a girl winning fair and square. Who was it, the Mordinos? The Wrights?"

"Does it matter? You don't give a shit about names, remember?" He grimaces and hefts the sledge, broken teeth streaked with a sick ruddy orange from his bleeding gums that smears when he pats the tip of his tongue over them. "Fucking teeth-busting_ bitch_. I was just supposed to make it look good. Now I'll make it last. Looks like your fancy coat got you killed."

Duster locks eyes with him as he smiles and pulls her own lips up in a rictus, putting every one of her intact pearly whites on display that she can. "Looks like it got me in _close_, you sonofawhore. Send whoever the fuck and the Golgotha my love."

Her hand flicks out faster than a spurt of heat lightning and slaps against his groin, pulling her up and out of the way of the sledge just in time. He's howling and she's dancing, although it's more of a dirge with that dreck in her blood, the slow, sick march of it taking the sweetness out of the song. Duster holds up her hand as he pats at his now-sopping crotch, waggling the handle of a recently whole switchblade.

"What..."

"Cheap little stick for a cheap little prick."

"How..."

"Never try to cross a cunt or send a tribal tripping, sunshine. You won't win on either account."

She circles him until he drops, retrieves the dart from the sand and thocks it into the side of his skull to send a message back. The crowd's still roaring, she's still on top, but the song's gone fully sour for her now, and she sighs.

"I'm too old for this shit." Duster takes time to make sure whoever pegged her in the neck isn't waiting in the wings before she picks up her knives and staggers off out of the arena, ignoring the crowd, ignoring Jules calling after her, openly walking down the street until she reaches the weathered door she's looking for. Fine then; if New Reno wants her gone she can take the hint, but it'll be on her own damn terms. Even she can't have pissed off anyone here bad enough to pay for a contract to track her all over the damned NCR and beyond. "I hear you're hiring honest folk."

The oldster across the counter, who has a pate so shiny it would put a new babe's ass to shame, eyes her with his mouth in a pinch. "That we are. You know how to get around?"

Duster laughs. "I think you know I do. Think you know I need to now, too."

He grunts and pushes a battered clipboard across the melamine, the rivets on the back squeaking. "Payment on delivery. Failure means we send someone out to take it out of your hide. You get three hots, two shots and a cot at the main depots upon completion of each job; everything else you have to hunt up for yourself. You can't write your name, just mark down an X."

"I can write my name just fine." She picks up the pencil and scrawls on the dotted line.

_'Courier'._


End file.
